


This House is Full of Women

by HomesickAlien



Category: Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)
Genre: 1st yr mika 2nd yr shuu the classics, M/M, a lot of dialogue in this one (i love writing mika's accent), ok nobody told me i tagged the yrs wrong all this time i just noticed im a fool
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-13
Updated: 2018-02-13
Packaged: 2019-03-17 13:53:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13660353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HomesickAlien/pseuds/HomesickAlien
Summary: Mika reflects upon the very first time he'd met Shuu.





	This House is Full of Women

**Author's Note:**

> Nocturne finally finished getting translated (Thank you DreamyProjects) and I haven't been able to stop screaming at my own ass about Shuu meeting Mika correlating to Shuu and Kuro apparently just taking random trips to other prefectures as kids???? Nobody seems to be as excited about this as me.  
> I tried to make it fit with my own headcanon, you know... That came centuries before even Halloween... About why Mika is at Yumenosaki anyway. So I thought it would be nice to write it like a reflection, like Mika recognizing Shuu after the fact... Maybe it's best to just read it and not hear me explain it, though...  
> The title is from [This House by Japanese Breakfast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrnAd7UxDrE)

“How unfortunate, is it not?” Shuu sighs, “This is the fifth day in a row that Nito has gone off playing hooky. Could it be that that one has finally reached his rebellious stage, I wonder?"

Mika laughs to himself, though he's doing the absolute most not to shake around too much. It’s almost more uncanny to watch Mika attempt to sit still than it is to see him being dressed in frivolous, feminine clothes. His mentor has worked on these outfits to the late evenings of their days together, with an obvious model in mind for them, Mika thinks, though they fit him just as well. It's quite an honor for him to be chosen to model for Shuu's clothes, really, even if he's only doing it as second fiddle. He can’t help himself from getting a bit too giddy, like he’s moving up in a world, though he’s always been welcomed in Shuu’s mind.

Shuu is just obtuse about his feelings, that’s all. That’s what everyone says to Mika, and yet it’s difficult to see it in himself. The meaning behind being welcomed into Valkyrie, as a dancer or otherwise. Even if he were to believe Shuu’s words, he thinks, he isn’t really that pretty. Not here, in this Yumenosaki Academy, land of nothing but beautiful people, who have trained endlessly in the art of being beautiful. Not here could it be that Mika would ever wrap his head around Shuu’s concept of beauty, that puts Mika just behind their Angel.

Or rather, that Mika could see himself as an Angel, too.

"I'm sure big bro Nazu is workin' real hard, too. Don'tcha trust him?"

“What a stupid question. Of course I do. Trust, however, does nothing to evade the price of committing to temptation. Certainly, God had also trusted his most beloved Adam and Eve and yet our sins were still wrought on this Earth.”

“I… Don’t really get what you’re sayin’, Mentor, but…”

Mika turns his head to look out the window, the minimalist light peaking through it’s oft shut curtains. He can always just barely make it out, the figure of a person that shines in the same light Nazuna does. His smile, that isn’t really a smile, as he works just as hard as Mika’s been to please Shuu between the two of them. He’d never thought someone like Nazuna ever had to try to be perfect, and in truth he probably doesn’t need to try at all regardless of what happens to the three of them. Where Mika takes the brunt of Shuu’s frustrations, he’s certain Shuu would never do any such things to Nazuna. 

Even if they’d all broke down and fallen apart, he’s truly uncertain where he’d stand if anything happened to Valkyrie. If Shuu would loathe him or continue watching over him. No matter how crude his words come out, Shuu’s always doing such kind things for him, whether they’re asked of him or not. It might have been a nuisance, once, but it still made him happy that his Mentor thought so much of his efforts that he had touched up Mika’s outfits for him. 

Shuu’s given him a comforting place to stay, given him lessons he’d never would have learned back in his real home. Even if his words are awkward and hard to discern meaning out of, he has his own faith in his Mentor. He doesn’t need to hear Shuu say he cares to believe it, and he doesn’t need to hear Nazuna say he’s doing his best to take the fall for him.

“Are ya almost done, Mentor? My legs gettin’ tired and I’m all antsy from sittin’ still so long…”

“Yes, yes. Please don’t go running off before I’ve finished my work.”

He’d been modeling one particular piece for Shuu for some time, now. At times, he thinks Shuu might let him take it off and be done, but it seems every time Shuu looks over him he notices another small detail he’d like to change. Little accessories, little additions, and those kinds of simple things that never seem to satisfy him. 

There’s something particularly nostalgic about this, though. Perhaps it’s not from his memories, but Shuu’s. When Shuu looks at it for too long, he can almost feel the exact sensation of pain in his heart as Shuu’s eyes look to be feeling. He wonders if it’s on purpose, if Shuu’s trying to recreate some kind of dream of his childhood Mika still knows so little of. To Mika, Shuu’s life lacks anything as simple as a beginning and end, it seems for the both of them things have only truly started with this new and improved Valkyrie. 

Yet still, Mika can’t shake the feeling he recognizes it, too. A memory of something long ago, something his thoughtless brain had forgotten entirely. How odd it is something so repressed could be brought back with the light touch of fabric to his skin, the embarrassing embrace of a girls dress eating away at him. 

“Mentor, hang on a second.”

Mika says, hands gripping Shuu’s shoulders to get a better look at his face. At his eyes. They’ve been together so frequently, so long now, he thinks he’s never taken the opportunity to really look into Shuu’s eyes. Even when he had come to Yumenosaki at Shuu’s request, to him, Shuu had been a stranger, but now…

“Nnn…. Nnnah…. Huh…?”

Mika makes all kinds of garbled noises the longer he stares, shifting his head back and forth like a lost puppy deluded with confusions about the world at large.

“Kagehira, please… You’re acting as a malefactress, it is ill befit of our perfectly crafted image as Valkyrie.”

“Nnaahh… Don’t be mad, I’m just thinkin’, that’s all.”

“Well, please, do not go burning the very last of your brain cells for whatever insolent thought has weasled its way into your mind.”

“Mentor, I think it was really important? Somethin’ I forgot, I can’t help m’self from bein’ curious.”

Something, something, something… Shuu shakes off Mika’s grip of him, muttering some kind of half-baked insult as he often does. One with all the vocabulary to be offensive but none of the bite, they’re almost comforting, and something about it strikes a chord in his brain. He settles himself down into a chair before Mika, lifting the hem of the dress to inspect it with the most of his focus to drown out the curious thoughts of Kagehira Mika. Or rather, in Shuu’s case, to express his own feelings in his artwork, fixing up the most minute of minute details at this point as though he will ever attain the perfection of God.

“Ah, I remember.” Mika says, quietly to himself. It doesn’t keep Shuu from hearing, but he refuses to pry for the sake of his pride. That’s just how Shuu is, expecting everyone to answer to even the demands he doesn’t vocalize. He’s a difficult person in that way, so inconsiderate to the people around him, everything revolves around his life and his alone. It’s a fatal flaw, but one Mika is quick to brush off consistently.

Something important, he thinks… How foolish he really must be, to have forgotten something like that. Perhaps all of Shuu’s insults are indeed entirely warranted. Shuu isn’t a stranger at all to him, is he?

 

 

Kagehira Mika has always been a lonely child.

Though he lives in a place with so many children, he’s alone in the masses of them. Unable to fit in, to become friends with anyone at all, perhaps he’s really a demon child. Just like all the monsters in the movies he sneakily watches in the nights when all the adults watching over them sleep, he can’t exist in this world of people like this.

He really doesn’t like to fight, or do violent things, boyish things, even. But he doesn’t have much of a choice at all, kids can be cruel and kids can be vicious but Mika would prefer to only be endeared with cutesy things, after all. The girls he grows up together with, they aren’t so bad, he thinks, but he can’t help but feel distant with them. Lonely, even.

Someday, he’ll reach an age where he can’t pass for a cute, little girl, with long hair and soft interests in the world around him. He wonders if there’s any sort of balance in this world, for a creature like him, that he can enjoy scary things and cute things without having stones cast at him. How silly that would be, he thinks, to exist in this world without following the steps to become human.

It’s not like he has anyone in particular to lean on, no parents or siblings to give him guidance on how to live a normal life. When his chest hurts, it hurts only for Mika, and no one else. When he plays alone, with crows in the garbage dump as opposed to doing his chores of picking up said garbage, it’s the most happiness he feels in a day. As far, far away from other people as possible; if he stays away from them, he’ll never hurt them, after all. That’s the most comfortable place to be, painless and free. 

“Hey, whatcha got there, little guy?”

Mika speaks lowly to one of the crows picks at the trash heap. It really just makes his job more difficult to keep shooing the birds off, keeping them from poking holes and stealing from the bags, but they make good company. He feels like he might have just been mistaken for a boy way back, these little weird birds are quite endeared to him, after all. 

“Nnah… That’s a little candy, ain’t it? I really like ‘em, but I don’t think they’re good for a little bird like you.”

He takes the candy from the beak of his friend, holding it up under the light of the sun in the sky. It’s a good day to fly, he thinks. Clear and peaceful as it ought to be for an early spring morning, he’s caught up in the romantics of it all. The beauty of the changing seasons, maybe he’d meet an angel today. Someone entirely new, to save him from this Hell he’s been born into, this boring life. This loathsome life. This life of no beginning and no end, just as to be expected for a demon like him.

Nobody likes crows, after all. Their feathers are dark and mysterious, but the more time he spends with them, the more misunderstood he thinks the color is. Just like his hair, or his disturbing eyes, they’re just different, that’s all.

He feels a tap on his shoulder that startles him so much so he feels himself tumbling over as he turns to meet the one garnering his attention.

“Ah- I’m almost done, I promise, please don’t get mad at me, I… I…?”

He realizes the person looming over him doesn’t look much like anyone he’s ever seen before. He looks so elegant and beautiful, like an aristocrat from another far off country. It’s actually rather more intimidating than if it were one of his guardians, he’s always been taught not to speak with strangers. But if they’re about the same age, he can’t help himself from reaching out, he’s ultimately a rather friendly person, even if no one else is.

“He… Hello? My name’s Mika… Are ya lost or somethin’?”

“Did you put one wrong eye in, I wonder?”

“Wh… Wha’zat supposed t’mean?!”

Mika can’t explain why it is, he’s certainly heard worse things about his appearance, but he can’t help but be offended by this foreign person acting as uppity as he’d expect. Even though he hates being stared at himself, he gives the strange person a glare that doesn’t seem to suit his face at all. It’s not that he can’t be angry, but that it feels wrong entirely to be angry. Or rather, to be spiteful, he lacks the trait all together.

“Hmph, how horrid it must be for you. You’re like a diamond in the rough, aren’t you?”

The boy takes out a cloth from his pocket, wiping off Mika’s face gently until his skin is actually visible. It’s rather soft, after all. In truth Mika’s terrible at keeping up with it. Spending most of his time outdoors and picking up trash for himself, maybe that’s the one thing he can’t relate at all with the girls he meanders with most often.

What kind of weird person acts like a mother to someone he’s just met, anyway. Somehow, it annoys Mika even more than the eye comment. 

“Hey, quit rubbin’ my face, wouldja?”

“Hold still, honestly… I’m almost finished.”

He really is just like Mika’s guardians, always scolding him for being rambunctious. For his inability to just sit still, to be a normal child. An easy child. That’s always how it is, isn’t it? This Kagehira Mika, it’s such a strong curse not even his own parents must have wanted him, that he’s been cast off into a place like this.

The strange boy runs his fingers through Mika’s long, somewhat matted hair, until it just begins to untangle. Just for a moment, Mika does feel he’s being prettied up in a special manner, like the girls in their orphanage playing with dolls, but that’s not the most otherworldly thing this boy does for Mika. Not at all, in fact, it’s rather tame compared to his following request.

“You should wear this. I hadn’t made it for you, so maybe it won’t fit you, but I feel in my heart that it is God’s very will that I have met you today, the same day I’d mended this.”

The boy holds out a dress for him, and Mika wonders if he’s mislead the guy with his name, or if he just doesn’t care at all. It feels so lovely between his finger tips, the fabric is so divine and of such high quality, it almost burns him to be tainting something so beautiful with his dirty hands. What kind of mercy would God ever shine on a monstrosity like him, to meet such a kind person only for a singular chance moment in his life. There’s no meaning in it at all, it’s not fate or God or anything of the like, just a taste of something Mika will never get to indulge in again. Even to wear something so beautiful, would only cause a boy like him harm in the end; it’s insult to injury, but he doesn’t let go of it. Not even for a second does he think to let go.

“Icchan? Where’d ya go?”

Another boy is calling, for this strange one, Mika presumes, since he turns his head at the voice. Icchan is a pretty odd name, too, he thinks, but he doesn’t comment. It must not be his real name, but he’d regret forever not asking for it. Even though, it’s not like he’d be able to search for the boy who showed him the tiniest bit of kindness and run away with that boy, or any fairytale ending like that. Not at all, that’s merely a figment of his attempting to deceive him. God playing trick on him, rather than killing the Devil, it’s more fun like this for the divine and the damned to bicker over meaningless things, and play with humans like dolls until they’ve worn out their welcome. 

“It seems I must be leaving you now. Please keep this, I am certain that this is only the beginning of God’s plan for me. If you are truly and angel Heaven sent, you should do your best to look your part.”

The boy gives him such an assured nod, it’s impossible for him to deny such strong faith that resonates from him. Saying all kinds of words he doesn’t understand at all, to even go so far as call a monstrosity like him an angel…

It’s impossible for Mika to keep his mind off of it for the rest of his evening. That boy that had run into his life then run off swifter than a shooting star, was there any purpose to an interaction like that to be calling it divine? Even if he’d returned to the same garbage dump everyday, it takes an eternity for the wheels of fate to turn in motion. For Mika to meet his strange, fated deity again.

It’s silly, he thinks. The boys in their home will just go on to bully him again if he wears it, but he does the very most to clean himself spotless tonight. To make sure there’s not a speck of dirt on his skin, before locking himself up in his room and putting on the clothes he’d been gifted. As he’d thought, they were girlish and feminine things, and as the boy thought they don’t quite fit him either.

But just for a single moment in his life, staring at himself in the mirror, he does see it. That diamond, he’d mentioned. That angel. An angel. An angel like…

 

 

“Hey, Mentor? D’ya know who Michael is?”

Shuu gives him a quizzical look, less in regards to what he asks and more in regard to who it is who’s asking him. Mika Kagehira, who’s never shown an interest at all in those fanciful fairytales about life and death, to ask such a question seems entirely unprompted. Yet it’s better to seeing him act silently all this time, like a good boy, so Shuu doesn’t refrain to answer.

“Of course I do. Michael is an archangel of great respect, one who could defeat even Satan himself.”

“Wow, really? Nazuna didn’t say anything cool like that,” Mika laughs, “I’m really cool like that, ya think?”

“Why are you asking such ridiculous questions.”

“Oh, right, yah know Mentor? The other day, big brother Nazuna said my name sounded like Michael’s name, ain’t that really cool?”

Shuu scoffs at him. As it happens, just as suspected, Mika hasn’t garnered an interest in anything more thoughtful than his own selfish appearance. How foolhardy for Shuu to assume otherwise, it’s almost endearing how simple this child of his can be. 

“It isn’t ‘cool,’ Kagehira. It is honorable, however, you are spitting on such beauty with your foolishness.” Shuu heaves a tired sigh as he stands from his seat, “Someone like you is far too stupid to live up to such a name.”

“Aww, c’mon, Mentor? Don’tcha think… Someday, I could be like an angel, too?”

Shuu grunts in response, but he can’t deny he wonders the same of Mika. That there were something rather special between them, something he doesn’t much understand outside of sheer fate. If he reasons every moment he can’t comprehend to the work of God, he has nothing to fear in the end. He has more faith in this inexplicable possibility of otherworldly protection than in his gut instinct.

Mika wonders if Shuu remembers at all, the promised meeting they’d shared as children some time ago. If he still sees it in him, something beautiful and pure. His words would deny it entirely, but something in Shuu’s eyes expresses the same sentimentality. 

“Certainly, it’s already been decided, hasn’t it? For Nito to say something so unnecessary like that to you… I, too, chose you for a divine purpose. That is, that I chose you specifically to shine as a fellow member of this Valkyrie, it is only natural for God to surround himself only with the most sublime of Angels.”

Mika places a hand over Shuu’s mouth, smiling softly to himself as he shushes Shuu. 

“Ya really talk too much, Mentor…”

Shuu pulls Mika’s hand down, clearly aggravated, but it’s just the kind of a mother annoyed with her rowdy child. It’s neither negative nor positive, it’s practically Shuu’s resting point when it comes to him and Kagehira Mika. It feels so nostalgic to Mika now, though, that he can’t help but belittle Shuu with his consistently foolish, shining face. It’s a beauty only sullied with words, with his voice, but that’s a facade in itself. 

“I am well aware. Nito, as well, is oft complaining about how difficult I am, and yet look who’s still here? Both of you can complain as you like, yet you know best your place is right here at the side of the righteous and the devotional.”

“Stop it~”

Mika shakes his mentor by the shoulders, as though he were truly begging to be free of this torment that is his mentor’s endless monologuing. Maybe he’d mind it less if Shuu spoke like a normal kid their age, or like a friend, but he’s always speaking in obscure metaphors. He’s like a pastor trying to raise his children, never capable of explaining life in simple ways. Maybe it’s to be expected, Mika understands better living with Shuu how odd his life really is compared to Mika’s simple and easy life back at home. Shuu’s right about one thing, at least- Mika is truly honored to be able to stand at Shuu’s side. He always would be, he’s sure of it.

This Shuu Itsuki that once saved Mika’s life when he thought he’d had nothing to live for, and then again when he’d invited Mika to be an idol at his side…

Mika could never repay that in a thousand years of labour and prayer, but he makes an effort everyday to do his very best to shine in Valkyrie. Maybe he’s still lagging behind his brother, but for certain, soon he’ll catch up. Now, when Nazuna fails to show up to practice, he has all the time in the world to learn from Shuu how to do all those fancy dances Nazuna performs with ease. Nazuna himself had told Mika he wasn’t an Angel from the start, and if he practices the same moves again and again, someday they’ll feel as natural as walking to him.

To be beautiful, to be loved, and to be adored… They’re things Mika never considered were for him, before. But Shuu doesn’t hold back, in giving those acts to Mika even if he does it in obtuse ways. Just as practicing dancing makes perfect, practicing speaking to Shuu makes translating his feelings for them all the easier. When Mika locks eyes with Nazuna entering the club room silently as always, hours late now, he wonders, too, if Nazuna will ever learn to speak with them properly. 

If they could all have a conversation together, in a Universal language that everyone of them understood, then maybe nothing has to change at all. Mika smiles at the thought, though it’s not the first time they’ve met, everything now that his memories coming back to him; it all feels so brand new. 

He wonders, if his smile could be infectious, that he’d get to see Shuu and Nazuna smile for the very first time, too.

**Author's Note:**

> comment please !!!!!!!!


End file.
